After my last post I decided I needed to post the next time I felt really good. Fortunately, it wasn’t that long. The last week has been very typical of the end of the Lupron effect for me. Sunday and Monday were absolutely terrible, then suddenly Wednesday and Thursday were quite good, at least in the evenings. That seems to be a recurring theme, Pre-evening is iffy and the evenings are much better. Today, Thursday, I wound up taking Xanax to help me sleep through the afternoon, and awoke to a really good evening.

Despite my cancer I feel incredibly lucky. I managed to live the American dream. After my father’s death when I was 7, my mother and I were thrown into financial chaos. For over ten years we lived below the poverty line, although I didn’t know it t the time. It was just the way life was as far as I was concerned. At one point it looked like we’d have to move into government housing, the projects, but my grandmother had some land with timber on it that a company wanted to buy and it saved us, as well as, providing funds for my college education (supplemented by numerous loans from the University). I graduated, got a great job at Texas Instruments and moved up the corporate ladder. Eventually, I married and my wife and I started a software business that served the Department of Defense and the National Cancer Institute. We were able to retire early with enough money to live comfortably. As I said, I have been incredibly lucky.

As I was transitioning into retirement, The Stage I cancer diagnosis came. By the time I was almost fully retired, the Stage IV diagnosis came. It’s now almost 2.5 years later. We’ve traveled a lot, bucket list kinds of trips, but Lupron has been a consistent problem. Timing trips so I’m not affected by Lupron has been pretty much impossible.

I don’t know what to do about Lupron. On the one hand, it is unquestionably extending my life, but we don’t know by how much. On the other hand, I feel horrible 25-50% of the time. The depressions are often so bad that I pray for a brain aneurism to end it all.

Enough history, right now I feel great. The Lupron has subsided and a cocktail or two tonight has enhanced my view of life that much more.

I want to thank all my followers for your support. Your likes, comments, and encouragement mean the world to me. I suspect that one of the reasons I’m more inclined to post when I’m under Lupron’s spell is to get your support. It helps so much in helping me to get past the low points.

The future. It scares me. At this point it’s mostly fear of the pain that is waiting for me. The docs tell me that there are very powerful painkillers and I’ll be OK, but I still have my doubts. I take comfort in knowing that there is an option to put me in a chemically induced coma until I die. If the painkillers fail, that’s what I want.

I haven’t gotten to the point where I am scared about being dead. I may not get there at all, but I’ll certainly be more apprehensive at the very minimum. I’ve been reading the books about people who “died” and were brought back to life in the hospital. There are so many cases of this I find it hard to brush off. It also helps that I really like the experiences they report. I figure if this doesn’t happen, then when I die that’s it.

I find myself reliving my past a lot more since the stage IV diagnosis. Maybe people’s lives really do flash before them when they’re about die and when they know they’re dying “soon” the process starts and runs more slowly. I’m also spending some serious time getting my photographic legacy in order for my wife. But this isn’t all about the past. There’s still lots of time, even if it’s only a few years, to create a lot of great memories.

I’m always trying to find ways to better capture and preserve these memories. An up and coming technology called Life Logging may play a significant role. The idea is simple. You wear a tiny camera that takes wide angle photos “every so often” of what’s in front of you. Later these are edited and assembled into short time lapse movies of what you saw. Or you place the unit somewhere overlooking the area where you want to preserve the action. It sounds perfect to me for bucket list adventures, major family events, etc. Some may even want to wear one almost all the time.

The underlying technology to do this has been around for a long time, but only recently have startup companies started working on Life Loggers for the mass market. Two products are close to being released. The first, Autographer, is currently slated for availability in the UK in late January, 2013, for an estimated price of around 400 English Pounds (about $650 US), as of this writing. It’s by far the more sophisticated of the two and goes to great lengths to decide when the best time is to take pictures. It’s got five sensors and GPS to identify when to take a photo, based on changes in light, color, motion, direction, and temperature. For example; Autographer might capture an image when the wearer speeds up as they run for the bus, moves from a warm pub to a snowy street, or turns around to greet a friend. Photos are uploaded to your computer and you make one or more videos using their software. There’s a pretty good video on their site introducing the camera. Financially, Autographer has the advantage that even though it’s a startup, it has a well established British company behind it. (Thanks to Gizmodo.com for an interview they scored with the developers, which provided some of the info here.)

The second product is Memonto. It’s slated for availability in April 2013 at a cost of $279 US, as of this writing. It takes a picture every 30 seconds, period. This isn’t necessarily bad. It’s unclear if Autographer’s approach to snapping shots based on a collection of sensors is worth the extra cost compared to simple fixed interval shots. Photos in Memonto are uploaded to a protected web site Memonto hosts where they are geotagged and their computers take an automated first cut at editing the shots into multiple photo streams called “moments”. The user can then re-edit as they please. There’s a documentary on life logging on their site. If you scroll past the halfway point, a large number of photos from a prototype device are shown (at least I assume that’s what they are). They have a pronounced yellow cast. Hopefully, this will be removed in the final product and is not considered an “Instagram filter” look that’s desirable. The company is crowd-source funded through Kickstarter.

Both products have batteries that they claim will last at day or two before recharging. They also both claim they’ll have very easy to use software to edit and build the movies. Assuming the cost is reasonable, the software is where the rub will likely be, if there is one (or two). The hardware development needed is more evolutionary than revolutionary. The opposite is true for the software. Based on what little information there is about the companies, it’s hard to tell which one is more likely to produce the best software.

Between the two, based solely on the hardware and workflow, I prefer Autographer’s approach. I believe having a collection of sensors decide when to take the shot will result in picture streams that are smaller, more relevant, and need less editing. I also greatly prefer that all Autographer’s pictures will be stored and edited on my local computer instead of requiring an upload to Memonto’s cloud computers to get GPS tagged and edited into moments.

Stay tuned. If the initial reviews are good for either product, I’ll probably give ’em a try.

The Elvis wedding in Las Vegas was a blast! After we all were seated a fog machine started up, covering the floor in mist. Two huge doors in the back of the chapel opened up and in drove Elvis in a pink convertible Cadillac with the bride and groom in the back seat.

Elvis helped them out of the car, they went to their appointed places and Elvis conducted the service, interspersing it with a number of serenades.

At the end of the service, we all danced with Elvis singing, and then it was photo time for the family.

Last Thursday I returned to Texas. My wife and I had driven out to Florida with Julia, our French bulldog. My wife’s mother passed away recently and we went there so my wife could go through all the personal effects with her brothers and start to get the house in shape to sell. (This was where Julia started and ended her swimming career – see the prior post.) It turned out to be a bigger job than anticipated and she decided to stay behind, while I returned for a doctor’s appointment on Friday (that I couldn’t move for a variety of reasons).

It was very strange being home totally alone. I realized that it’s been over 20 years since I was at home without my wife or a dog for company. It was surprisingly lonely. I’ve traveled alone for business many times, and it never bothered me, but somehow this was different.

Friday came and I went to the psychiatrist. We discussed how the adderral was starting to fail. My body seems to be building a tolerance rather quickly. Instead of increasing the adderral, he doubled the anti-depressant I’m taking. Unfortunately, it may take weeks before we know if that works. If not, then it’s starting over again, each iteration taking weeks. Sigh.

Over the last two months the character of my depression has changed. I used to be able to tell if it was from the casodex, fear of my cancer, or my historical depression issues. Now they all blend and I can’t tell where it’s coming from. This makes it harder to fight. It does always pass, though, and I feel pretty good the majority of the time.

Saturday was a bad day. I think being alone contributed to the feeling that I’m surrounded by death. My dog Gladys, died from cancer recently, my mother-in-law died about the same time, and our other dog, Julia, was diagnosed with digestive problems and isn’t expected to make it past the end of the year. The time in Florida was also tough. I wasn’t all that close to my mother-in-law, but it was hard watching her children, all very good people, grieve as they went through her stuff.

On Sunday, and since then, I’ve felt quite good. My wife is now back home, along with Julia. Before long we go to Las Vegas for a friend’s wedding. Elvis will be the minister and he’ll even sing for us, no kidding! Attending an Elvis weeding is one of those things you want on your bucket list, but don’t put it on because it’s sooo unlikely you’ll be able to do it. This is going to be cool.

My relationships are deeper and more meaningful to me. This is especially true in my marriage. I also find I’m more thankful of little things, simple pleasures, simple surprises.

I feel better that I’ve worked up a comprehensive plan for my wife for after I die. As in most marriages, we have a division of labor. There’re a lot of things I do that will still need to be done. The plan contains the simple and complex tasks, all laid out.

I’m conducting an overdue review of wills, powers of attorney, medical directives, etc. Things that everyone should have right now, but always seem to get put off until it’s too late. Since I have a pretty good idea of the manner in which I’ll die, I’m more confident I’m getting the medical directives done just the way I want.

I’m going through my bucket list. It’s also easy to delay this until it’s too late. That’s not going to happen to me.

In the best, reasonable case I’ll only live 10 more years. That makes financial planning a lot easier. Plus, I can splurge a bit! It also means I’ll very likely die with all my faculties in reasonable shape. I don’t have to worry about being some poor soul slumped over in a wheelchair abandoned in a nursing home.

The manner of my death will likely be heavily sedated, but peaceful and painless.

The timing of my death will probably be forecast fairly accurately by the doctors I am told. That means I won’t die alone, which is comforting.

Last night my wife and I had the pleasure of seeing the concert “Celtic Woman” courtesy of two close friends. The performance was exceptional. What also struck me were the seats. We were in the fourth row dead center. I’ve never been that close to any performance before. We were too close to see the jumbotron. It truly is a different experience being that close, one you should add to your bucket list. I had no idea being so close could make a performance so much better. We could see the sparkle in the performers’ makeup, hear un-miced performers sign along, and catch the occasional stage hand in the background call out. A great show in great seats!

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